Best Women-Owned Hair Care
Best Shampoo
Best Conditioner
Kristin Ess Hair Weightless Shine Leave-In Conditioner
Best Curl Cream
Bounce Curl Defining Butta
Coming from beauty influencer Whitney White, you would expect the Melanin Haircare African Black Soap Reviving Shampoo ($20) to be every bit Instagrammable. What came as more of a pleasant surprise were the gentle lather, hydrating ingredients, and targeted applicator that made it easy to apply on braids, locs, or any other style you might need help getting to the roots. Plus, we can't help but take a big whiff of the peppermint scent every time
we let our hair down.
Like CPR for your hair,
Kristin Ess Hair Weightless
Shine Leave-In Conditioner ($10)
brought life back to our dull, lifeless
ends. Just a few spritzes to dampen
hair post-shower (a little goes a
very long way, as we learned the
greasy-haired hard way) left us
with soft, tangle-free, megawatt
shine that didn't weigh down even
the finest-hair-typed testers.
Anyone with curls knows
that moisture is the key to a head
full of defined, frizz-free coils, and Bounce Curl Defining Butta ($23) brought all the hydration with its murumuru and shea butters, castor
seed oil, and baobab oil. Just one
use left our curls softer and more defined, and the results just got
better over time. Our wash days
will never be the same.
Melanin Haircare African Black Soap Reviving Shampoo
Best Hair Mask
Ouai Thick Hair Treatment Masque
We know the softening
benefits of a good hair mask,
but the extra 20 minutes it tends to
steal from our already-maxed-out
shower routines? No, thank you.
We breathed a sigh of relief when
Ouai Thick Hair Treatment Masque ($38) worked its hydrating, shine-inducing, detangling magic in just five minutes thanks to the blend of plant-derived oils and butters. The best part: all the good hair days that followed.